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BREAKING: All five victims in Colorado named as new details from inside the venue emerge

 

This story will be updated with more info 

Update: It had previously been reported by numerous outlets, following a New York Times article (detailed below) interviewing some people in the venue on the night of the shooting, that a drag queen had helped to subdue the shooter, using a high heel. 

 

A 20-year-old drag artist, with the stage name Del Lusional, who was in Club Q that evening, has since offered some clarity and a correction. On Twitter, they said:

“The one who saved my life and stomped the shooter’s face in was not a drag queen, she is a trans woman. Let’s not call trans women drag queens during this time of grieving over a transphobic attack.”

 

 

The artist also retweeted a touching tribute to one of the victims:

 

All five victims in Colorado named as new details from inside the venue emerge

 

The five people killed during the Colorado nightclub attack

Colorado Springs Police Department Chief Adrian Vasquez offered a moment of silence (November 21) to honor the five people killed during a shooting at a nightclub over the weekend.

Vasquez said society loses often track of the victims when focusing on the suspect of the crime and asked that “everyone in the community honor each victim.”

Vasquez released the following names of those killed.

The information was also provided by the Colorado Springs Police Department on Twitter:

 

      • Raymond Green Vance (he/him)
      • Kelly Loving (she/her)
      • Daniel Aston (he/him)
      • Derrick Rump (he/him)
      • Ashley Paugh (she/ her)

 

After the moment of silence for victims, Vasquez said the department continues its investigation to seek justice for the victims.

 

People at Club Q that night share their experience.

 

Richard Fierro was one of two people who tackled and subdued the gunman inside Club Q in Colorado Springs on Saturday night, his wife said Monday, helping to cut short rampage that killed at least five people and injured 19 others

 

In an interview with New York Times at her home, Jessica Fierro, 45, said she was at Club Q with her husband, their daughter and friends to celebrate a friend’s birthday.

“We were having a great time, we were all on the dance floor and from one minute to the next you just heard gunshots and everyone was separated and just started running,” she said. “It was absolute chaos.”

Q Club shooting
Club Q

She described how her husband, Richard M. Fierro, assisted to stop the shooter from killing more people by using his own weapon against him.

“My husband took the gunman down,” she said. “My husband knocked the guns out of his hands and took the pistol and literally started hitting the guy with it.”

 

As gunfire erupted, Jessica made her way to a patio area, she said.

“I was zoned, I was dazed, I was scared,” she said. But her husband remained inside.

 

Jessica Fierro said her two best friends were shot and her daughter broke her knee running for cover. She said her daughter’s boyfriend was killed in the attack.

 

Mr. Fierro started to go for the rifle, but then saw that the gunman had a pistol as well.

“I don’t know exactly what I did, I just went into combat mode,” Mr. Fierro said, shaking his head. “I just know I have to kill this guy before he kills us.”

“I grabbed the gun out of his hand and just started hitting him in the head, over and over,” Mr. Fierro said.

As the fight continued, he told the outlet, a drag dancer stomped on the gunman with her high heels. The whole time, Mr. Fierro said, he kept pummelling the shooter’s head.

 

It has since emerged that Fierro had spoken in error, and it was a trans woman who helped to subdue the shooter. 

 

 

 

When police arrived a few minutes later, the gunman was no longer struggling, Mr. Fierro said, and he feared that he had killed him.

An aerial view shows police tape, after a mass shooting, at the Club Q gay nightclub in Colorado Springs, Colorado, U.S., November 21, 2022. REUTERS/Drone Base

Others from inside the venue that evening have also spoken about their experience, including Ed Sanders, 63, 

While ordering a drink at the Club Q bar in Colorado Springs, Sander was shot in the back and leg after the gunman opened fire inside the nightclub. He said the chaos of the shooting immediately gave way to victims helping each other.

 

Sanders, who lost friends in the shooting over the weekend, said the entire incident happened very quickly.

“The shooting started and I was hit in the back and I turned around and saw him and it was very fast,” Sanders told CNN from his hospital bed Monday. “The second volley took my leg and I fell. Everybody fell, pretty much.”

“After the shooting stopped, people were screaming and people were helping each other,” Sanders said. “Several people asked about me. I said that I was hit, but it didn’t seem that bad. The shot to my back didn’t feel like what it left, which is a big scooped out wound,” he explained, motioning with his hands.

READ:  Transgender man among those murdered in Colorado nightclub attack, as the venue marked Trans Day of Remembrance

 

emergency vehicles with flashing blinkers parked on a street, after a shooting in a club, in Colarado Springs, Colorado, U.S November 20, 2022, in this picture obtained from social media. in this picture obtained from social media. Trey Deabueno/TWITTER @TREYRUFFY/via REUTERS
Trey Deabueno/TWITTER @TREYRUFFY/via REUTERS

 

Kelly Loving was this morning confirmed to be one of the victims of the shooting.

Her sister, Tiffany Loving, confirmed the news to New York Times, saying she had been informed by the FBI of her death.

 

“She was loving, always trying to help the next person out instead of thinking of herself. She just was a caring person,” she told the outlet.

“I’m so devastated because she was such a good person,” Natalee Skye Bingham, a friend of Kelly, 40, told NYT.

 

Loving, who was trans, had been at the club during a weekend visit from her home in Denver, where she had recently moved. Bingham said she had been on a FaceTime call with Kelly shortly before the attack began, and said to her: “Be safe. I love you.”

“She was like a trans mother to me,” Bingham added. “In the gay community you create your families, so it’s like I lost my real mother almost.”

 

Yesterday (November 20), two of the five people killed during the attack were identified as Daniel Davis Aston and Derrick Rump, who both worked behind the bar at the venue.

 

 

Daniel Davis Aston (right) was 4 when he first told his mother that he was a boy, Denver Post reported yesterday, having spoken with Daniel’s parents.

But it took more than a decade for Aston, 28, to come out as transgender and fully embrace his identity, his mother, Sabrina Aston, said Sunday.

 

Daniel Davis Aston, a bartender at Club Q and victim in the shooting, is pictured in an undated family photo.
Aston Family via NBC

He transitioned and found peace, she said. He was as happy now as he’d ever been.

She said he moved to Colorado from Oklahoma, where he was able to make friends quickly, largely because of his personality.

 

“It’s just unbelievable,” she said. “He had so much more life to give to us, and to all his friends and to himself.”

“We are in shock, we cried for a little bit, but then you go through this phase where you are just kind of numb, and I’m sure it will hit us again,” she told the AP. “I keep thinking it’s a mistake, they made a mistake, and that he is really alive.”

 

The Gazette later identified bartender Derrick Rump as one of the victims. Rump, also a co-owner of Club Q, “was all about keeping people happy,” Tiara Latrice Kelley, a Club Q performer, told the outlet.

 

Tragically, the nightclub attack took place on the eve of Trans Day of Remembrance – a day to remember trans people around the world who have died or been killed as a result of transphobic violence – and the venue targeted had been marking the occasion that weekend.

 

A suspect was later identified as 22-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich, who was being treated for wounds following the attack. He was charged Monday with five counts of first-degree murder and five counts of bias-motivated crime-causing bodily injury by state prosecutors.

In Colorado, hate crimes are referred to as “bias-motivated” crimes, per CNN.

 

Aldrich’s grandfather is Randy Voepel, California State Assemblyman and MAGA supporter who praised the actions of the January 6th insurrectionists, comparing them to American Revolutionaries. Voepel was just rejected by voters in the midterms.

Michael Allen, the district attorney for El Paso County, told CNN that the suspect in the nightclub shooting is expected to appear virtually in court from jail after he is released from the hospital.

 

The shooter entered the establishment, Club Q, wearing body armor, and began firing with an AR-15 style rifle, according to two law enforcement officials briefed on the shooting.

One of the club’s owners, who reviewed surveillance video of the scene, said the gunman entered the nightclub with “tremendous firepower”.

When police burst in, the man was still on top of the gunman, pinning him down, Mr. Suthers told The New York Times.

Q Club shooting
Q Club

Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers said that someone had acted quickly to grab a handgun from the gunman, managed to hit him with it, which subdued him.

At least two victims were still being treated for critical, life-threatening injuries on Sunday, Penrose Hospital Chief Medical Officer Bill Plauth told The Washington Post.

 

One of the wounded, Jerecho Loveall, 30, was released from medical care around 6am, according to the outlet.

 

Story will be updated.

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